if only bad dreams were so fleeting
by Amielleon
Summary: Inigo is slow to adjust to sleeping by himself, and everything about this situation mixes poorly with Henry being himself. Something like that. Modern AU.


Notes: This one belongs in the Broadband-AU universe. I should inform you that Henry is a veterinary surgeon, which will make sense of a few lines. There may be other semi-cryptic allusions but those are clear enough for the purposes of this story. Shockingly, I think this story works well enough for both the Japanese and English versions of Henry.

* * *

Friday night, the first night they had put Inigo to bed in a room of his own, Henry—on account of being a heavy sleeper—awoke to a knee in the gut, and then another knee, before Inigo finished struggling his way over his father and into the treasured middle of the bed between his parents, worming his way down into the blankets and insistently burying himself into Olivia's bosom.

"What's the matter, honey?" Olivia murmurs, even less awake than Henry.

"I had a scary dream."

She lays her arm over him, her hand stroking his hair. "What was it about?"

"Robbers. They got in our house. And then they hurt you with a knife."

Giving Henry a pointed glance over Inigo's head, she soothes, "Really? That does sound scary. But the robbers aren't going to get in." She kisses him on the head. "Everything's all right."

Inigo grasps her nightshirt with his little hand and nestles closer. His hair brushes against the puckered scar on her neck.

* * *

"Maybe we shouldn't tell him these stories yet," Olivia says to him in the morning, voice lowered while Inigo watches TV in the other room.

"But he loves that one," Henry points out. "Besides, it can't be worse than the news."

"It involves his own mother. Don't you think that's, ah, scarier?" Henry tilts his head as if he doesn't agree, and Olivia resists the urge to remind him that at the time, Henry had been so upset that _she_ had to calm _him_ down while bleeding on the sidewalk.

"Well, I won't bring it up if he doesn't ask."

"I think we shouldn't tell him any frightening stories until he's older." By _we_, she really meant _you_, but her request seems so unfair when put bluntly.

"You mean like the one about the time I was waiting in that ambush, and their lead missed the mine by like half a foot, so—"

"_Darling_."

"Right. Gotcha."

If it were anyone other than Henry, she might have expected some bitter comment to follow, like _Am I __not supposed to tell my own son anything about my life?_ But if Henry feels slighted by her request, he keeps it to himself.

It makes her feel bad in his place. Olivia pecks him on his cheek. "Someday he'll be ready to know."

* * *

The next night, their doorknob must have engaged the lock by itself. It happened from time to time, though they usually didn't think anything of it. But midnight brings the sound of mechanical rattling. Inigo whines from beyond the door.

"I'll get it," Henry volunteers immediately. Olivia wonders to herself how he's already so awake—he takes at least ten minutes to drag himself out of bed in the morning—but she has no complaints.

Henry opens the door, and Inigo latches onto his leg. "Bad dream?" he asks as he picks him up. Inigo makes a sound of agreement as he wraps his little arms in a stranglehold around Henry's neck.

Henry nudges the door closed with his foot and returns to their bed, sitting on his pillow with his child in his arms for a moment before Inigo squirms away to lie down in his favored part of the bed again.

Olivia cuddles him and sleepily notices that Henry's still sitting. He remains sitting for some time before he slides back under the covers. She wonders if he's jealous. He had mentioned once, before they agreed to try for a baby, that he was afraid his son wouldn't like him.

(Honestly, it was one of his more typical fears, compared to—for example—his worry that she'd miscarry the baby if she danced.)

"Do you want to go cuddle with daddy?" she murmurs.

"No," Inigo says, in the plain way of children.

Olivia hasn't yet sorted out a response when Henry reaches over and lays a hand on Inigo's shoulder. He understands.

* * *

When Henry goes to turn off the lights, he pauses as if in thought, then opens the door a crack before coming back to their bed.

"He's going to have to learn to sleep by himself," Olivia says. Henry makes a sound of agreement as he winds his hand around her arm and presses his chin against her shoulder. (She could have said the same of him.) "I'm worried that keeping the door open will encourage him."

"Well, as long as that lock's acting up..." He trails off, and she can feel his eyelashes flutter against her cheek. "I don't want him to feel like we're throwing him out."

"What? That's horrible. We're not throwing him out."

Maybe she was being too defensive, but she had a hard enough time tucking Inigo into his own bed and leaving him there as it was. Every time, he'd watch her go with his dark eyes wide, following her to the light switch and out the door.

"My parents used to lock me out of the house," Henry says without warning. (She's never prepared to hear it.) "The sound of the doorknob rattling like that is pretty uncomfortable. Worse than, say—microphone feedback."

Olivia rolls to her side and lays an arm over him. Silently yielding, she repeats, "We're not throwing him out."

* * *

Miraculously, that night they sleep until morning without interruption. Then, in the gentle light of day, Inigo runs to their room, pushes against the unexpectedly open door, and sidles into between them anyway.

"Good morning, dear," Olivia says. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yup," Inigo says, putting his hands on her face. "I dreamed I was riding a flying horse."

"Oh my. That sounds like a fun dream." She has one arm halfway around him when he abruptly squirms around to face Henry.

"Daddy," he says very gravely, "you need to take good care of them."

"Ahaha, the flying horses you mean? Of course."

Inigo climbs onto him and lays his head on his chest. "Take good care of them, daddy." Henry rubs his back, saying, _I will, I will_.


End file.
